


On the Shore

by neverwheredreamer (clutzycricket)



Series: Lions and Dragons and Wolves Oh My [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Crack Treated Seriously, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/M, First War with Voldemort, Gen, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 07:43:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/733127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clutzycricket/pseuds/neverwheredreamer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how unlikely it is, it's nice to have a hand to hold when the world is heading for hell. (A series of one shots, describing the life of the Hogwarts Crowd.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Come Together (March 1976)

Rhaenys looked at Willas’ cane, which was currently in splinters. (And if it wasn’t for the fact that he knew none of the Sand Snakes were in on this, he’d start wondering about coated potions on the copper handle still in his hands.)

“I believe asking for my cousins to help would be a bad idea,” the Ravenclaw girl murmured. “Mostly because it does not seem to be doing anything.” 

He winced at the carefully polite tones. Rhaenys and Sansa both got very polite when they were angry. Loras’ shouted rage was easier to deal with. He knew what Loras would do.  _Everyone_  knew what Loras would do.

Rhaenys was very, very good at being unpredictable. 

She sighed and caught Black’s attention, pointing at the cane. Most of the Great Hall missed the by-play, but he saw Tyrion take a long swig of what was probably not transfigured booze. (It was  _breakfast,_ for Merlin's sake.)

This wasn’t the first time the former Slytherin team had taken vengance on him for his role in the team’s end. (Which, he added bitterly, was getting hit with a cursed bludger, nearly dying, and shattering his knee. He'd been screaming in pain as the healer tried to vanish and regrow his knee, which had failed, because some vile shit had concocted an experimental charm and decided to test it on someone flying hundreds of feet above the ground.)

Sarella looked up from her book. “Could you warn me before you start the massacre?”

Willas sighed as Rhaenys said, “Of course.”

~

Rhaenys was marching her way out of the library before lunch when Margaery tapped her arm.

“I want in,” the Slytherin girl said. She looked fluffy and impeccably dressed in her uniform, until you got a look at her eyes. “They hurt my brother, nearly took his favorite classes from him, and are hurting him  _again_  because they were foolish enough to get caught.” She didn't do anything as undignified as stamping her foot, but several students walked around her awkwardly rather than ask her to move. The library doors were wide enough, they thought. It was safer that way.

Rhaenys grinned. “I was hoping you would ask that.” She gave a bright smile at the granddaughter of Olenna Redwyne-Tyrell. 

Willas nearly choked on his lunch the next day. Margaery, Loras, and Renly had joined him for lunch, meaning Margaery was holding court at the Ravenclaw table, where he meant to join Rhaenys for lunch. Several of her friends, cousins, and hangers-on had joined them, meaning those who could get away with it were sitting at the other tables. Rhaenys was talking brightly to Elia and the Marauders, which meant bad things in the future. 

And that she knew that Margaery had planned to sit here. Which meant...

“It’s so sad about the rumors,” Margaery said lightly. “Would you believe that of Mandon Moore? I mean,” she continued “I doubt there was a real goose involved, and no one truly wants to believe any bit of gossip they hear, but you did see him,” she trailed off in a blush that sent the other into fits of giggles or gales of laughter, depending.

Mandon Moore had been limping yesterday, but that was because Little Elia had been pissed off at him yesterday. 

Marg knew that, though. Merlin, that was a wicked trap. Either Moore was embarrassed by Marg’s story, or he had to confess to trying to beat up a firstie- and the daughter of a professor. And a little  _Gryff_ \- and that would bring the Marauders howling down on him, especially since Sirius wanted to impress Rhaenys. (Or convince her family not to kill him.)

Margaery shot him a sweet, triumphant smile.

~

Somehow he hadn’t expected Sansa to get in on the game. But she was best friends with the Twins, so it shouldn’t be a surprise. Not to mention that Sansa’s older brother was Robb, and Robb was brilliant at plotting and transfiguration.

He had to fight back a snicker. Sansa liked pretty things. Everyone knew that, and judged her accordingly. Pity that people forgot that pretty could be dangerous. 

And that Sansa had a mean streak when she felt like it.

He wasn’t going to forget the sight of Ramsey Bolton with delicate little antenenna and gorgeous pink and blue butterfly wings, especially as Ramsey couldn’t quite get his feet to touch solid ground. Which lead to him pinwheeling desperately to stay on an even keel.

Jeyne Westerling had gotten her camera out, taking a massive amount of photos. 

Later he found out that trying to remove the attachments caused Ramsey intense pain, and that it had taken Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore five hours to get rid of them. 

He didn’t deserve her, he really didn’t.

(He laughed himself sick when Sansa said even the bright colors hadn't done anything to improve Bolton's looks, completely innocently.)

~

It didn’t stop them, though. Moore was hexing anyone who made honking noises at him (which would go better if he could aim), and Ramsey looked especially murderous, even after Lily Evans hexed him in the kneecap. 

Which made him completely unsurprised when someone hexed him from behind one afternoon. 

Well, tried. 

Willas recognized the curse- the dancing curse, which would be funny in almost any situation that didn’t involve a shattered knee- and tried to duck.

The light missed, however, hitting a very familiar figure.

Asha Greyjoy was utterly terrifying, and very good at nasty spells. She was also a good sport about most things, and had been genuinely decent when she dropped by the hospital wing after the accident. She told him that she planned on reforming the Slytherin team herself, and promised to bar any of the old players. 

She broke the curse in less than three steps, whirling about with her wand in hand. He managed to get out of her way quickly enough for Asha to use that "levicorpus" spell on their attacker.

“Corbray, you fuckwit,” she started at the tall skinny Slytherin, “just because I refused to let your firstie-ogling arse rejoin the team…”

Professor Martell refused to hear a word spoken against Asha, but suspended Corbray pending an investigation into Asha’s rant.

Renly, Rhaenys and Garlan followed him whenever they could after that, smiling and laughing and never taking their hands off their wands.

~

Tyrion or Arianne, he decided as the owls headed for their targets.

He didn’t know who else would be able to send five boxes full of jinxed broom splinters, especially given Rhaenys’ look of honest surprise.  Vanity, Corbray, Moore, Bolton, Sweetling, Blount, Avery, all holding broom splinters.

“Were they _all_ involved?” he asked faintly. 

“Tyrell,” Tyrion said wryly, “you were just the worst case. I would bet all the gold in my father's vaults that half of them are already kissing a certain dark wizard's boots."

Lily Evans walked by. “I always thought organized sports were an excuse to be violent…” she said just loudly enough to be heard, red hair swinging in its braid. "I suppose making sure they can't play means they have no excuse to go around cursing people like Mary or you, right Tyrell?"

Tyrion whistled as she walked through the crowds. (And possibly staring at her bum. This was Tyrion, and he was safely at the Hufflepuff table, far enough from Potter.) “Damn, I honestly thought it was our sneaky Cheshire Cat. Or Dany, since she has a talent for crushing people.”

“That is a two person job, at least,” aforementioned Cheshire Cat said, Meraxes eating her eggs. The half-wild kitten followed Rhaenys everywhere, the way Drogon followed Dany. Rhaenys swore he was half-kneazle, though that was only possible if the other half was a very small leopard.

Dany, he realized, shooting a cautious look at the Gryffindor table, did look smug. 

He made a note to never piss off either Evans or Dany, as Marg asked- loudly- if they had been given permission to have their brooms in Hogwarts now, since Professor Martell had banned them.

~

In all the excitement, he had forgotten that Rhaenys had also sworn revenge. 

Sadly, he missed it. Arianne hadn’t, and was still laughing, despite the dark circles under her eyes as she strolled over to the Hufflepuff table.

"The first years will be terribly confused by all this table hopping," Arys Oakheart said. The Keeper was smiling, though, and staring at Arianne as he said it. 

“Oh, the first years are expected to learn, so we might as well encourage it," she said with a chuckle, sitting close to a flustered Arys as she rearranged her robes. "Willas, my cousin is completely mad. Not that this is a new fact, but she decided that she needed to prove it again.”

“Which one?” he asked wryly.

“The one with the evil cat,” Arianne answered in the tones of one who often found unexpected evidence of a cat's love for humanity. “She warned us, but Nym, Tyene and I wanted to find out what she was doing, and your sister…”

Would have Honeydukes to hand out and a smile on her face. He nodded. 

“The screaming started first- it sounded like a banshee, and Snape was cursing at it,” Arianne grinned wickedly. “Then the bats. The big, big bats. The Mad Danelle Lothson bats. With claws. Not enough to slash, but enough to prick. Some sort of hallucination potion was involved from there. Plus some screening spells.”

“It was quite considerate of her to use silencing charms so the rest of the house could sleep,” Tyene added approvingly as she sat down herself. "And to use potions had burned off so quickly they were safely out of their system by the time the professors arrived."

Rhaenys was arguing with Tyrion about some assignment for Care of Magical Creatures behind him from her spot at the Ravenclaw table, and didn’t even spare a glance for the former Slytherin team.

“Think they’ll behave?” Arys asked wryly. 

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Willas said, not as gloomily as he should have.


	2. October 1974, March 1975, July 1976

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three scenes from the courtship of Sirius Black and Rhaenys Targaryen.

 

Sirius was now realized exactly why Remus was irritated whenever someone “borrowed” his books.  He needed information. The information was in a library book that very few people would look up, so he planned on reading it in bits and pieces in the library. Which meant no paper trail, and that he could hide it among a bunch of other books that had useful bits in them.

So of course someone was reading it. And it was Cheshire- Rhaenys, that was. The Ravenclaw had a talent for getting around the castle without getting caught, and a quick wand hand. Not someone he wanted to piss off, even if her cousins weren’t a terrifying force.

“Do you need something?” she asked, not looking up from the book.  

“Well, I did want the book, Cheshire,” he said. She looked up, enormous purple eyes narrowed with annoyance.

“Going to hex me to get it?” she asked. A Hufflepuff two tables over looked up at that, blanching. Sirius gave him a jaunty wave- he thought it was a Frey boy, one of the decent ones who followed the Stark boys. He was the only other person in that section of the library, with the nearest other group being a second year study session led by the younger Westerling girl and Jack Montgomery over near the doors.

 

Rhaenys sighed as the boy started packing. “Really, Black, must you scare away the witnesses?”

He started running, and her lips quirked in an almost-smile. “In all seriousness…” she winced, and he very nicely did not make the obvious joke. “What do you want a book on experimental healing for?”

He shrugged. “I do some experiments. Thought it might be helpful.”

She closed the book carefully, her jaunty little raven quill with the goldish dusting marking the page. (Not that he paid attention to things Cheshire did. He was just used to everyday objects trying to maim him.) “Ah. Your animagi experiment, then?”

He looked at her blankly. She propped her head on one hand, elbow managing to avoid the scattered notes she’d been making. “You know that Tyrion’s been my friend since we were six, right?”

That made a disturbing amount of sense. Tyrion was sneaky and hated surprises, so he’d probably tried to figure out the story behind James… incident on the stairs three weeks ago. (James had been fine, but it had inspired Sirius’ library hunt.)

“Mostly?” he offered. Part of it was for Remus- the spells worked as well for animagus-induced injuries as Remus’ moon-induced ones.

She looked at him until he started fidgeting, then pulled over the chair next to her. “Would you like to see my notes? I was trying to work out the reaction of the tourniquet spell with a modified blood-thickening spell. It could be used as a way of trying to isolate a venom or poison passed through a wound. It would be a useful tool for aurors, especially with some of the incidents that have been happening lately.”

He thought of Bella gleefully discussing poisons and Malfoy talking about the usefulness of hidden weapons.

It might be nice to have something concrete to use against them. Something to make their ideas even more out of reach.

He sat down. “Anything for muscle tears?”

She pushed a section of notes at him.

~

“Hey, where is Cheshire?” Sirius asked a Ravenclaw firstie. A Hightower girl, he thought. Hightowers were all ‘claws or ‘puffs. She would also be a cousin of Willas Tyrell, and hopefully would get his point.

The firstie looked longingly at the entrance to the Ravenclaw common room. “She said she would be waiting near the Hospital Wing. They weren’t sure why Willas was attacked, and the professors are still investigating Moore and Mulciber, so Renly Baratheon and Garlan are organizing a watch until they tell us what happened.”

Which would convince the professors to actually give them answers, Sirius thought approvingly. Garlan was tenacious, and Cheshire was a right hellcat when she got her back up. Didn’t raise her voice, but she didn’t need to.

Sirius thanked her and headed towards the Hospital Wing, stopping to ask the friendlier portraits if they had seen Rhaenys. Some of them led him to a hidden staircase that had a familiar three-headed dragon charmed on the keystone. (And it was far too old to have been Rhaenys or Viserys’ work- it was worn away on one corner.)

He took the stairs to the Hospital Wing’s floor, and came out to a friendly portrait. Lucretzia was a bouncy young witch from Italy, and fond of gossip.

“I heard about Willas Tyrell,” Lucretzia said with wide eyes. “Is he really a ghost?”

“No, no,” Sirius said, hoping he was right. “Dumbledore caught him when he fell, but his leg was hit by the bludger.” He winced. The Gryffindor team was originally scheduled to play Hufflepuff, and the only thing keeping them from playing was a nasty potions incident had left Robb, Jon, and Loras all viciously ill two days ago.

When was the damn bludger cursed?  He’d thought that Vanity had more sense than that- she was Captain mostly because she didn’t indulge in blatant acts of cheating, since those usually backfired whenever McGonagall got involved.

Slytherin was in third, if he remembered James’ dark mutterings.  Maybe it was cheating, then, he hoped as he went along the hallway. The paintings knew what he was about, and called out directions for him.

But if the game had been played as intended… the bludger could have done a lot more damage, could have killed someone.

He pulled himself out of his paranoid thoughts when he heard the sobbing, a hallway over from the hospital wing.

He pulled his wand out, and carefully opened the classroom door. It was one of the ones used for Care of Magical Creatures when the weather was horrible, he remembered. It certainly smelled like it.

There was a curled up figure with a mass of dark wavy hair, shaking as she let out a series of rough sobs behind the teacher’s desk.

“Chesh?” he started. She looked up, those enormous eyes of hers bloodshot. “Tyrell’s alright?”

“He’s scr-screaming,” she pulled a lock of hair behind her ears, needing a second attempt to get it right. There wasn’t much light in the classroom, just a bit of fading sunlight that showed the usual lack of dust a building with house elves had. “The spell- they don’t know what it was, and they tried to regrow his knee…”

Sirius let out a shaky breath and sat down next to Rhaenys, close enough she could lean against him. It also meant he was leaning against the cool wall, and he needed the support. Regrowing joints wasn’t a perfect magic, and even if it worked, Tyrell would have needed to check with healers about it all his life, and probably lose a lot of movement in the knee. “But the knee is the only problem?”

She nodded and sniffled. “The matron checked for signs of damage to his neck from the fall and he was fine, but whatever it was… I don’t know if they can fix it at all. And then his parents came, and you can only have so many visitors, so I left…”

“He’ll live, though,” Sirius said, watching as she laid her head on his chest. You were supposed to pat crying people, he thought, tapping her hair and shoulders. It made her snicker a bit, which he counted as a victory.

~

Rhaenys pulled the skirt of her dress robes up, the ease of long practice the only reason she could get away with running through St. Mungo’s in her heels. Potter was waiting for her at the doorway to one of the rooms, pale and pinched looking. He was holding the wooden door frame so tightly his knuckles were milk colored and he would have the pattern left in his hands.

“Is he alright?” she asked.

James gave her a jerky nod. “The healer says he’ll be fine in a day or two, they just wanted to make sure they hadn’t missed anything.”

She sighed and dropped her skirt, not caring that she’d most likely shown dozens of people her knees. Muggle girls did it often enough, and really, they were knees. It wasn’t as if she’d pulled her skirts to her waist or anything.

Viserys would lecture her, though. Well, she’d lecture right back at him. He hadn’t wanted her to come, and only a pointed kick with her shoe had gotten him to let go of her arm and leave the gathering that she’d been forced to attend. Garlan had seen them, and had summoned the Knight Bus and glared at their fellow passengers as Rhaenys tried to keep her mask of stillness on.

James let her through, and Rhaenys let out a small whimper.

Sirius was never motionless, never quiet. His hands would flail about when he talked, he’d tap his feet to whatever song was in his head, he never sat still, even in Binn’s class when everyone else was falling asleep.  Tyrion had dryly said that he was a nuisance even when asleep, and that he and Remus alternated silencing charms because Sirius talked while dreaming.

The fact that he was utterly still now was even worse than how pale he was, or the orange coagulant balms used on his throat and disappearing under his hospital gown.

“Bellatrix, I presume?” her voice was odd to her own ears, a full octave higher with no signs of shaking.

“She took Sirius’ leaving badly,” James confirmed. “Can’t prove it, though. And the Ministry considers it a family matter, meaning that nothing is likely to come of this.” He sounded sour, and she heard his footsteops as he could closer.

“Will they try and bring him back?” she asked, turning to look at him. He twitched and looked at Sirius, considering.

“Legally, they can,” James said, collapsing on one of the chairs. “But since my mother is Sirius’ great-aunt, and not properly disowned…” He pulled a face. “They don’t like public messes. And Mum will put up a fight.”

She understood that. Public messes sparked gossip, and that could be dangerous for families with secrets to hide. (Though Bellatrix would probably be unmanageable within a few years.) “But there are only two males under the age of fifty in the family, and Regulus…” she frowned. “Wasn’t there that old rumor about the Blacks being cursed?”

James didn’t seem to understand her leap in logic, but then again, he hadn’t been raised by her father. Her father had the quiet, unsettlingly well-argued position that a great deal of Wizarding myths had a trace of truth in them. She just wished that she remembered the details behind that particular rumor. Maybe she could understand why that had seemed so important.

She shook her head. “Ah, well. Let us just hope that they do not decide to try and get him back via less than legal means.” There were potions to bind the will in all manner of ways, after all. And a child so publicly forswearing his parents…

She pushed back a loose twist of hair, noticing James’ eyes focusing on her arm.

_Oh, Viserys_ …

Her arm had a rather spectacular bruise on in, in the shape of Viserys’ hand. She hadn’t even noticed it over the clawing feeling in her throat when Myrcella had told her innocently that Sirius had been found not far from Saint Mungo’s, having attempted to Apparate after being attacked.

She gave James a brilliant smile. “Viserys was worried when he saw me trying to run. We were at Storm’s End- there was one of those dreadful little parties that are really excuses for power plays and deal-making. I think even the host was bored, really.”

Well, Stannis Baratheon was not a social wizard. His ascension to the head of the Auror Office was mostly thanks to the efforts of his wife Cersei and her ambitions. (As Cersei sat as one of the youngest witches in the Wizengamot, she could not be seen as having a lowly Auror as her husband, even if her twin fought promotion tooth and nail.)

James gave her a skeptical look but remained silent.  

She ignored that and flipped over one of Sirius’ hands, placing two fingers over the pulse. Stupid, really, but she kept being reminded of the animation charms that were used for children’s toys. They didn’t do heartbeats, only the rise and fall caused by breathing.

She relaxed a bit at the slow but present beat.

“It doesn’t seem like Padfoot, does it?” James asked as the door swung open.

Rhaenys blinked at Aunt Ashara’s clear anger.

“I said for no one to enter this room, Potter. Clearly you cannot follow…” she blinked. “Hello, Rhaenys.”

She gave a sheepish grin. “Not related to Sirius, not intending on cursing him.” Well, probably. There had been the odd intermarriage, but nothing directly relating them for at least a century.

“Do your parents know?” she asked, arms crossed over her green Healer’s robes.

Rhaenys slipped her hand around Sirius’ wrist. “Viserys knows. He’ll tell them.”

Ashara sighed at that. “I will call Arthur if your uncle comes in here shouting.”

Rhaenys winced and changed the subject. “When will he wake up?”

Aside from the hand she had moved, Sirius was neatly laid out, the only sign of movement the rise and fall of his chest. It seemed like magically induced sleep, at least.

“In an hour or so.” Ashara looked at the edges of the coagulant. “The curses are all broken, at least. There would be green or black tinges to the flesh if they were still there.” She turned her gaze to James. “Are you certain that he won’t press charges?”

James nodded. “Not likely.”

Rhaenys thought about the types of people who worked on cases like this. Most were in the interrelated network of wizarding society, and quite a few were gossip hounds.

She made a note to tell Arianne about confidentiality and how it really should apply to underage wizard children, for when she became Minister.

Sirius wouldn’t want to be an object of pity or ridicule, and the Blacks wouldn’t want to be investigated for possible use of Dark Magic.

“How did you even find out?” Ashara asked finally, looking carefully outside at the subdued bustle of the Spell Damage floor.

“Myrcella overheard it and mentioned it to me,” Rhaenys said, remembering. “She said there were a few of her mother’s not-friends- and that was exactly how she put it- talking about it. They were talking about how Dumbledore was encouraging rebellion and all of that.”

Myrcella had pointed them out.

_Walder Frey, who sat on the Wizengamot, sat on a chair, complaining that he was too old to be standing about while his eighth wife, a girl barely out of Hogwarts, was fetching him wine. Petyr Baelish, head of the Wizengamot’s administration services, was leaning against a table, trying to project an air of ambitionless competence.  Old Selwyn was there, and one of the secretaries for the Minister, the one who looked like a toad. Lucius Malfoy looked bored and was mostly talking to his wife._

His wife, who was Sirius’ cousin.

Damn, she would have to tell someone. Not her uncles… well, she would tell Uncle Doran, if only because he was actually sensible about this sort of thing.

If it was a thing.

But everyone knew that Bellatrix was a Death Eater, and Sirius was attacked this afternoon. And Bellatrix had told someone in that party, which had met…

“When was Sirius found?” she asked, pretending she had only imagined the fingers under her hand moving on their own.

“About six,” Ashara said in the tones of long suffering that she tended to use when talking to Rhaenys’ father. The sixteen-year-old chose to ignore that.  “He had been there maybe half an hour?”

The same time the party at Storm’s End had started.

So perhaps it had been Mrs. Malfoy. But she had heard Joffrey saying something about his mother and Mrs. Malfoy spending the afternoon together, and how annoyed his father had been, since he disliked the Malfoys and their opportunism. (A view she really couldn’t argue with.)

Damn. Maybe she would ask Tyrion if she could talk to his brother. Anyone with half a brain would know that she would tell Uncle Art, keeping the matter as quiet as possible. Almost everyone forgot that proper by-the-book Arthur Dayne had trained Jamie Lannister.

She would just wait for Sirius to wake up, first.


	3. Prompt Fic: Ares/A Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dueling Club, May 1976

“Wands at the ready,” Renly said, looking far too full of himself. Undoubtedly he had a bet running on this. 

Dany smiled, looking up at Theon Greyjoy. Theon had been dragged here by Asha, and complained about everything, including the thought of fighting a “little girl”.

He started with a body-bind that she ducked. He did that every time, as predictable as clockwork. Did he think that he could beat her that easily?

She bounced three spells one after another in the rhythm their defense professor had showed her. Tarantellega, Rictumsempra, and the vine spell.

Well, Professor Mormont hadn’t taught her that. Nymeria had, and it had passed along. Elia cheered, though apparently Greyjoy had bounced every spell away. Sansa turned to Jeyne Poole and Doreah, trying to hide her amusement.

Theon launched a leg-locker that shouldn’t have gone where it did, and she had to jump up to avoid it. He was slightly slower, though.

She aimed a dye spell at his eyes and managed to connect, giving him a mask of red spatters. One of the other Gryffindors laughed. 

He grazed her with his next spell, freezing up one arm. She pretended she couldn’t spare a moment to undo it, watching as Greyjoy stumbled again. 

Now.

Greyjoy was trying to flail against the vine spell, that fell off his shield spell and waited for him to step into it and anchor on his shoe. It had crawled up his leg, over his robes, growing and waiting to snap into immobility.

“Yield?” Dany asked, knowing her second victory wouldn’t be so easy.

Well, unless she had to duel Joffrey Baratheon.


	4. Bad Dream

Rhaenys doesn’t kill Sirius when she finds out.

It’s a near thing, and only the fact that Snape  _knew_  keeps her from using every spell she knows to hurt the person who put her baby brother at risk.

(He didn’t know about  _Egg_ , a part of Rhaenys snaps, the part who had been told to keep a secret, to keep him safe. Remus, yes, and probably Sansa’s little brother, but not Egg. No one not family knew until this August.)

It could have been every nightmare she’d had since she was six. Snape could have used a camera, he could have brought Ramsey or Moore or a Frey or someone, could have exposed everything…

But Snape knew, and had been gathering proof. 

What if he told?

"I can accept the motive, but not the means," Rhaenys muses finally, tangling her hands and hair and deciding she should do damage control now.

She’s not going to sleep anyway. 

**Author's Note:**

> Emma Vanity is listed as Captain of Slytherin's Quidditch team for 1972-1976 by semi-canon sources. Given my general cheery "AU!" timeline shakiness and going for characterizations... Willas' fall was March 1975, in what was supposed to be the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff game. But a Thing happened, leaving Robb, Jon, and Loras unable to play. The upshot is that Willas took a hexed bludger to the knee, and the Slytherin team was disbanded then and restarted by Asha Greyjoy in September 1975.


End file.
